Definiteness in Chiyao

The aim of this paper is to examine the linguistic devices used to express definiteness in Chiyao, a Bantu language of Southern Tanzania, Southern Malawi, and north-western Mozambique. The analysis is guided by the familiarity theory of definiteness, and is based on the data collected through audio-recording of traditional narratives which were later transcribed to identify utterances with definite NPs. Findings establish three main strategies of signalling definiteness in the language, which include morphological, morphosyntactic, and use of bare nouns. The morphological indicators of definiteness include subject and object markers while the morphosyntactic indicators include demonstratives, locative particles, possessive determiners, genitive expressions, and relative clauses. Bare definiteness is mainly expressed by nouns of inalienable possession, including those denoting body parts and family relations. These findings enrich the existing literature on definiteness in Bantu languages and inform future typological and comparative studies on this subject.

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The relative verb forms of Cuwabo (Bantu P34) as contextually oriented participles

Linguistics ◽

10.1515/ling-2020-0046 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 58 (2) ◽

pp. 463-491

Author(s):

Rozenn Guérois ◽

Denis Creissels

Keyword(s):

Noun Phrase ◽

Relative Clauses ◽

Head Noun ◽

Bantu Languages ◽

Verb Forms ◽

The Subject ◽

North Western

AbstractCuwabo (Bantu P34, Mozambique) illustrates a relativization strategy, also attested in some North-Western and Central Bantu languages, whose most salient characteristics are that: (a) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement with the subject (as in independent clauses), but agreement with the head noun; (b) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement in person and number-gender (or class), but only in number-gender; (c) when a noun phrase other than the subject is relativized, the noun phrase encoded as the subject in the corresponding independent clause occurs in post-verbal position and does not control any agreement mechanism. In this article, we show that, in spite of the similarity between the relative verb forms of Cuwabo and the corresponding independent verb forms, and the impossibility of isolating a morphological element analyzable as a participial formative, the relative verb forms of Cuwabo are participles, with the following two particularities: they exhibit full contextual orientation, and they assign a specific grammatical role to the initial subject, whose encoding in relative clauses coincides neither with that of subjects of independent verb forms, nor with that of adnominal possessors.

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The Bondei object pronoun in clefts and pseudo-clefts.pdf

Studies in African Linguistics ◽

10.32473/sal.v19i2.107464 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 19 (2) ◽

pp. 233-257

Author(s):

Elizabeth G. Weber

Keyword(s):

East Africa ◽

Relative Clauses ◽

Syntactic Category ◽

Bantu Language ◽

Grammatical Construction ◽

Subject And Object ◽

The Subject ◽

Noun Class ◽

Cleft Constructions

Verbs in Bondei, a Bantu language spoken in East Africa, have crossreferencing pronouns which agree in noun class with the subject and object of the clause. This paper will examine the distribution of the syntactic category object pronoun in four grammatical constructions: (a) basic affirmative declarative clauses; (b) relative clauses; (c) clefts; and (d) pseudo-clefts. In declarative and relative clauses, the presence of the object pronoun does not require a definite interpretation of the object noun; the absence of the object pronoun does not preclude a definite interpretation of the object noun. In both cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions, however, the object pronoun obligatorily functions to grammatically mark clef ted and pseudo-clef ted objects as definite. In the cleft constructions, the definiteness of the clef ted NP forces a contrastive interpretation. Thus, a judgement concerning the function of this grammatical construction with regard to contrastive function will be made on the basis of the distribution of the syntactic category object pronoun. possible to make the same judgment. Contrastive function is unambiguously signaled by the relative morphology on the verb of the pseudo-cleft. In this constuction, the object pronoun serves only to force a definite interpretation of the NP. In the pseudo-cleft constructions, it is not possible to make the same judgment. Contrastive function is unambiguously signaled by the relative morphology on the verb of the pseudo-cleft. In this constuction, the object pronoun serves only to force a definite interpretation of the NP.

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prosody of Símákonde relative clauses

ZAS Papers in Linguistics ◽

10.21248/zaspil.53.2010.397 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 159-185

Author(s):

Sophie Manus

Keyword(s):

Relative Clauses ◽

Noun Phrases ◽

Head Noun ◽

Vowel Length ◽

Bantu Languages ◽

Bantu Language ◽

Prosodic Phrase ◽

Final Stress ◽

The Relationship

Símákonde is an Eastern Bantu language (P23) spoken by immigrant Mozambican communities in Zanzibar and on the Tanzanian mainland. Like other Makonde dialects and other Eastern and Southern Bantu languages (Hyman 2009), it has lost the historical Proto-Bantu vowel length contrast and now has a regular phrase-final stress rule, which causes a predictable bimoraic lengthening of the penultimate syllable of every Prosodic Phrase. The study of the prosody / syntax interface in Símákonde Relative Clauses requires to take into account the following elements: the relationship between the head and the relative verb, the conjoint / disjoint verbal distinction and the various phrasing patterns of Noun Phrases. Within Símákonde noun phrases, depending on the nature of the modifier, three different phrasing situations are observed: a modifier or modifiers may (i) be required to phrase with the head noun, (ii) be required to phrase separately, or (iii) optionally phrase with the head noun.

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Papers from the workshop on Bantu relative clauses

ZAS Papers in Linguistics ◽

10.21248/zaspil.53.2010.388 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 261

Author(s):

Laura Downing ◽

Annie Rialland ◽

Jean-Marc Beltzung ◽

Sophie Manus ◽

Cédric Patin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Comparative Study ◽

Relative Clause ◽

Relative Clauses ◽

The Other ◽

Bantu Languages ◽

Bantu Language ◽

Wide Range ◽

Western Uganda ◽

Restrictive Relatives

All of the papers in the volume except one (Kaji) take up some aspect of relative clause construction in some Bantu language. Kaji’s paper aims to account for how Tooro (J12; western Uganda) lost phonological tone through a comparative study of the tone systems of other western Uganda Bantu languages. The other papers examine a range of ways of forming relative clauses, often including non-restrictive relatives and clefts, in a wide range of languages representing a variety of prosodic systems.

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The forgotten structure of Ikalanga relatives

Studies in African Linguistics ◽

10.32473/sal.v38i2.107290 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 38 (2) ◽

pp. 131-154

Author(s):

Rose Letsholo

Keyword(s):

Relative Clause ◽

Relative Clauses ◽

It Projects ◽

Bantu Languages ◽

Parametric Variation ◽

Bantu Language ◽

The Subject

Demuth and Harford (1999) contend that in Bantu relatives, the verb raises from I-C if the relative morpheme is a bound morpheme while the subject remains in spec-IP resulting in subject –verb inversion. Ikalanga, a Bantu language spoken in Botswana has no subject verb inversion in relatives although the relative morpheme appears to be a bound morpheme. This observation challenges the conclusion reached in Demuth and Harford (1999). This raises the question, What then is the structure of the relative clause in languages like Ikalanga and Luganda? This paper argues that Ikalanga relative clauses differ from other Bantu relative clauses in that the projection that houses the relative feature (RelP) projects below TP while in Bantu languages where subject verb inversion is observed such as Shona it projects higher than TP. Thus, the variation in the structures of Bantu relative clauses can be accounted for if we understand that there is a parametric variation in the position in which RelP projects; lower than TP or higher than TP.

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prosody of Shingazidja relatives

ZAS Papers in Linguistics ◽

10.21248/zaspil.53.2010.398 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 187-209

Author(s):

Cédric Patin

Keyword(s):

Relative Clauses ◽

Noun Phrases ◽

Head Noun ◽

Vowel Length ◽

Bantu Languages ◽

Bantu Language ◽

Prosodic Phrase ◽

Final Stress ◽

The Relationship

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On relative clauses and prosodic phrasing in Ciwandya

ZAS Papers in Linguistics ◽

10.21248/zaspil.55.2011.411 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 55 ◽

pp. 121-139

Author(s):

Al Mtenje

Keyword(s):

Empirical Research ◽

Relative Clauses ◽

Syntactic Structure ◽

Prosodic Phrasing ◽

Bantu Languages ◽

Bantu Language ◽

Prosodic Phrase ◽

Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽

Restrictive Relatives

The interaction between Syntax and Phonology has been one area of interesting empirical research and theoretical debate in recent years, particularly the question of the extent to which syntactic structure influences phonological phrasing. It has generally been observed that the edges of the major syntactic constituents (XPs) tend to coincide with prosodic phrase boundaries thus resulting in XPs like subject NPs, object NPs, Topic NPs, VPs etc. forming separate phonological phrases. Within Optimality Theoretic (OT) accounts, this fact has been attributed to a number of well-motivated general alignment constraints. Studies on relative clauses in Bantu and other languages have significantly contributed to this area of research inquiry where a number of parametric variations have been observed with regard to prosodic phrasing. In some languages, XPs which are heads of relatives form separate phonological phrases while in others they phrase with the relative clauses. This paper makes a contribution to this topic by discussing the phrasing of relatives in Ciwandya (a Bantu language spoken in Malawi and Tanzania). It shows that XPs which are heads of restrictive relative clauses phrase with their relative verbs, regardless of whether they are subjects, objects or other adjuncts. A variety of syntactic constructions are used to illustrate this fact. The discussion also confirms what has been generally observed in other Bantu languages concerning restrictive relatives with clefts and non-restrictive relative clauses. In both cases, the heads of the relatives phrase separately. The paper adopts an OT analysis which has been well articulated and defended in Cheng & Downing (2007, 2010, to appear) Downing & Mtenje (2010, 2011) to account for these phenomena in Ciwandya.

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Comprehension and Eye Movements in the Processing of Subject- and Object-Relative Clauses: Evidence from Dyslexia and Individual Differences

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci11070915 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (7) ◽

pp. 915

Author(s):

Marianna Stella ◽

Paul E. Engelhardt

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Eye Movements ◽

Relative Clauses ◽

Sentence Type ◽

Main Effect ◽

Subject And Object ◽

The Subject ◽

Processing Difficulty ◽

Object Relative

In this study, we examined eye movements and comprehension in sentences containing a relative clause. To date, few studies have focused on syntactic processing in dyslexia and so one goal of the study is to contribute to this gap in the experimental literature. A second goal is to contribute to theoretical psycholinguistic debate concerning the cause and the location of the processing difficulty associated with object-relative clauses. We compared dyslexic readers (n = 50) to a group of non-dyslexic controls (n = 50). We also assessed two key individual differences variables (working memory and verbal intelligence), which have been theorised to impact reading times and comprehension of subject- and object-relative clauses. The results showed that dyslexics and controls had similar comprehension accuracy. However, reading times showed participants with dyslexia spent significantly longer reading the sentences compared to controls (i.e., a main effect of dyslexia). In general, sentence type did not interact with dyslexia status. With respect to individual differences and the theoretical debate, we found that processing difficulty between the subject and object relatives was no longer significant when individual differences in working memory were controlled. Thus, our findings support theories, which assume that working memory demands are responsible for the processing difficulty incurred by (1) individuals with dyslexia and (2) object-relative clauses as compared to subject relative clauses.

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Germanising Oshiwambo language

JULACE: Journal of the University of Namibia Language Centre ◽

10.32642/julace.v3i2.1383 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 26-40

Author(s):

Johannes Uushona ◽

Petrus Mbenzi

Keyword(s):

Daily Life ◽

Higher Learning ◽

Linguistic Study ◽

Bantu Languages ◽

Languages In Contact ◽

European Languages ◽

Bantu Language ◽

Institutions Of Higher Learning ◽

Phonological Rules

Oshiwambo, a Bantu language spoken in Northern Namibia and Southern Angola, like other languages in contact, has adopted foreign words from other languages to meet the needs of its daily life vocabularies and activities. This paper identified and described the phonological changes which the loanwords from German go through to fit into Oshiwambo speech system and established the phonological rules that account for these changes. The paper is based on the hypothesis that words borrowed from other languages, especially European languages, into Oshiwambo, are phonologically modified to fit the Oshiwambo speech system because little information is available on the phonological wambonisation of German words. The data were collected from school textbooks, daily conversations and personal vocabularies of the researcher. The loanwords were transcribed for phonological analysis. The paper investigated how Oshiwambo borrowed words from German yet the two languages differ widely in terms of phonemic inventories and phonotactics. It has become evident that there are several vowel and consonant changes in the process of borrowing. The paper contributes to the linguistic study in the area of Oshiwambo in particular and Bantu languages in general. The knowledge acquired could be utilized by the institutions of higher learning too.

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On the aspectual system of Wushi (Babessi), a Ring Grassfields Bantu language of Cameroon

Language in Africa ◽

10.37892/2686-8946-2021-2-2-43-65 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 43-65

Author(s):

Liliane Hodieb

Keyword(s):

Multiple Time ◽

Bantu Languages ◽

Bantu Language ◽

Verb Forms ◽

Grassfields Bantu ◽

Past Tenses

One of the characteristics of Bantu languages, including Grassfields Bantu languages, is their multiple time distinctions. Within the Ring Grassfields group, multiple tenses are also well attested. For example, Aghem has three past and two future tenses (Anderson 1979), Babanki has four past tenses and three future tenses (Akumbu & Fogwe 2012), as well as Lamnso’ (Yuka 2012). Oku has three past tenses and two future tenses (Nforbi 1993) and Babungo has four past and two future tenses (Schaub 1985). These tenses represent different degrees of remoteness in time such as hordienal, immediate, distant, etc. However, in spite of the indisputable lexical unity of Ring Grassfields Bantu languages (Stallcup 1980; Piron 1997), Wushi strikingly stands apart: it does not mark tense morphologically. As a matter of fact, the aspectual system of Wushi is based on five aspects: perfective, imperfective, retrospective or anterior, potential, and the distal or dissociative marker kə̀ that is analyzed in the light of Botne & Kershner (2008). This paper sets out to analyze these verb forms.

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